


A Discovery in Huelva

by ElizabethPacifica



Series: One Shot Backgrounds for The Kiss of Sea Air [1]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 16:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethPacifica/pseuds/ElizabethPacifica
Summary: An only daughter makes a discovery.A drabble really, pieced together and in need of polishing which I may do after the main fic is closed. Told from her viewpoint, written as a short memoir.





	A Discovery in Huelva

**Author's Note:**

> The child was born two years prior to the battle off the Devil’s Triangle. This story is centered around the La Rabida Monastery, Huelva, Spain and the famous Virgen de los Milagros.

“Mama! Mama! Please may we stop here to pray?”

“No.”

By the age of seven I knew I would receive the same answer. Still, my weekly habit would not subside. Sunday mornings we would walk gracefully into the Church, (for Mama instilled in me, for reasons I did not understand, that all eyes would be on us and we must conduct ourselves as if were descendants of Caesar) right to the front, taking our place next to the higher ranking nobles, hear Mass, and then she would grab my arm and rush me past the darkened niche that my curiosity set focus on. I prided myself though, always managing to see a little more from the corner of my eye. It was a puzzle to my mind’s eye and as I walked by I would open my eyes as wide as possible, then blink and hold them closed, trying to memorize anything I could even if it imprinted only darkness. That darkness meant empty space and next time I could focus attention above or below that space, hoping for any sliver of color. 

There was something entombed there I imagined, some relic of a great triumphal saint, and I was not allowed to know. Ever. 

The Easter of my tenth year Mama had been ill. My escort to Midnight Mass included two uncles and six cousins. I was thankful to be paired with cousin Maria Lucia. She was precocious and full of wild imaginings and told the most complicated stories. I think she convinced herself some of them were true, as she always sung and twirled around with great gestures. The Holy Fire outside allowed us to light our own beeswax candles as we processed into the church. I remember Lucia grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the niche somehow avoiding the attention of her father. I warned her. I did try to anyway. We were never allowed to see. A cold chill took my soul and Lucia, she kept going and going further into the darkness. I squinted my eyes, attempting to focus on her light. It only confirmed what I suspected. There was a marble plaque raised slightly above eye level and a modest Altar below it. Lucia tripped and her candle extinguished. I had to go in. I had to save her! Before I could enter she emerged white as a ghost, with dried red rose petals clinging in her hair and under her shoes. I brushed her off and we were both thankful that it was still the darkest part of night. No one would see evidence of her transgression.

She never spoke to me again. 

Each of my subsequent birthdays came and went in exact the same manner. I would beg to see the side Altar and be told a stanch no. I think by the time I reached twelve my mother was very tired of these questions. Madness was descending and she was to re-marry. I hated that man. He was nothing like I imagined my father and I - I was forced to call him Papa! This tall man, more hair on his face than a respectable person should have even on his ears!, and stubby broad fingers with half bitten nails. How he retained any title or was allowed to wander freely in any Castillo I do not know.

My father. I was only told two things: He was of an honorable and noble character and loved my mother very much. A passionate match. People would say I had his eyes, but those eyes would eventually only mean trouble. Any man I would be tied to would have to deal with my immense temperament and would not have an easy time. I liked that idea. If there was anything in me like my father I embraced it, much to the disappointment of my family.

By my fifteenth birthday I had given up asking to visit the side Altar. Solidified that I must obey, that whatever lay in the dark marble should be buried and forgotten. That day was windy, threatening to storm on my new dress and silk shoes my now stepfather bought me. I did not mind. Those shoes were too small, too difficult to walk in, an irritant with every step. Or maybe it was only because **_he_** bought them for me. That man.

It should not have been surprising to my family when I announced my shoes had mysterious disappeared the next day. Truth was I threw them into the river, hoping they would carry out to the sea, and in some superstitious way my angel would place his hand on the shoes and point them in the direction of my father. I followed the river down, climbing over Roman ruins, at one point sliding down the brush covered edge and almost landing completely in the river. It was one thing to lose the shoes but if I destroyed this dress, Mama had threatened to send me directly to the Convent in Cadiz for less! No, I could not lose sight of those shoes. It seemed to take hours before the confluence grabbed the shoes and when they did, I was ready at the shore. The ocean took first the right shoe and bounced it back and forth with the tide on the sand never quite taking it all the way out to sea. My left shoe, it had a different story. Caught up in a rip tide where the river met the sea, I saw it hover on the foam and then driven down as the triangle of waves consumed it. I was terrified. I had placed all my hope in that shoe – a fool to think such an object could point my destiny like a compass! Before I realized how far it had been washed away I was struck with a panic and needed desperately to retrieve the shoe. The waves took me and it wasn’t until I was almost waist deep that I realized what was happening. I have a brief memory of being under the water, of muffled orders and men’s voices, then being dragged out in my heavy dress across the sand while my mother came running down to the shore screaming. I had been followed by my half sister who having discovered where I was heading, turned her little tattling self directly to the hacienda. I’m sure she thought I would get in trouble and what delicious treat that I, deliberately lying about the missing shoes, well this would prove again what a disobedient girl I was.

I know I should have been married by the time I had to pose for that foolish painting! Standing in the studio it was the one time I could remember my mother yelling at my stepfather. Yes, it was I that caused their argument but she stood up for me. All because I insisted on including the imagine of my patroness, La Asunción de la Virgen. I knew a painting like it accompanied the ship my father embarked on and it was the only way I had to include him at my side. My stepfather was slow with his revenge, but it did come. Heavy handed. Terrifying. Swift. 

I ran into the Church and did the only thing my exhausted body would allow me to do, throwing myself down at the feet of the Virgin of Miracles. I was exhausted from constantly weeping, of fighting **_that man_**. And then, I felt my body rise to stand, a soft mist taking me up and laying a cold hand on my back. The alabaster statue – she began to glow! I, I cannot describe the light, for it was not like looking at the sun, but so much brighter than any candle in the church. Soft as the mist but defined around her jewels and clothing. Her sceptered hand reached out and just before I forced my eyes to blink, she pointed to the niche. She, the Heavenly Queen, the Mother of Safety, giving me **_her_** permission to see what my earthly mother had denied me.

I rushed across the nave into the darkness with no fear. The floor was cold and the crunch of dried flowers was the first sound then my heels on the stone floor and I came face to face with an undressed marble Altar. No candles, no flowers, no cloth - empty. But sitting above it, a large plaque with the same patterned scrollwork I recognized from the old Santa Cruz church. I ran my fingers over the carved ebony, wanting to make the discovering of the relic’s name by feel alone, repeating the action to make sure I gathered all the letters in order.

I discovered it was a memorial - to my father.

**Author's Note:**

> When we reach the end of The Kiss of Sea Air, you will know more about the niche in the Monastery / Church.


End file.
